


EOD

by wheel_pen



Series: Agent and Doctor [18]
Category: The Bourne Legacy (2012), The Hurt Locker (2008)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy, aka Barton, is on a mission in Iraq, posing as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal soldier—a member of the Army’s bomb squad. And one of his co-workers has a very familiar name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	EOD

The specialist joined his new master sergeant at the edge of the camp, answering the call of nature. “Barton, right?” he remembered.

“Yes.”

“Ward,” he reminded the other man, who’d had a rather hasty introduction earlier that day. “H‑‑l of a first day, huh?” he offered cheerfully. “Man, a trunk full of bombs, I have seriously never seen so many before at once! They could’ve sent a rocket ship to Mars with that payload. H—l, _we_ could’ve been sent to Mars with it!” Barton gave him a sideways glance as they finished up. “Oh, sorry, I do kind of chatter a lot,” Ward admitted, unrepentant. “I get it from my mom. Feel free to tell me to shut up when it gets annoying.”

“Okay,” Barton agreed as they walked back to the fire.

“But, yeah, man, that was so cool the way you took off your helmet when you saw the bombs,” Ward went on. “I mean, ice cold!”

“I work better without it,” Barton informed him.

“D—n reckless,” Sanborn pointed out, disapproval in his tone. “No point in having big b—ls if you don’t have a _head_.” Ward laughed like he’d made a hilarious joke, while Barton merely frowned at him slightly as he reached into a sack.

He pulled out an orange, which made Ward sit back up with interest. “Where did you get oranges around here?” he wanted to know.

“I brought them with me,” Barton replied, peeling it efficiently.

“From Jordan? Awesome, I can’t believe they allowed you the excess weight,” Ward went on. “Have you got a lot? Can I have one?”

“Let the Master Sergeant eat his orange in peace,” Sanborn suggested, trying to settle down for the night.

Barton tossed Ward an orange. “Thanks, B,” he told him with enthusiasm. “Hey, I just realized, since he’s B and you’re S, that makes the two of you BS,” he joked.

“Shut up, Ward,” Sanborn suggested, not unkindly. “I’m not carrying your lunch sack tomorrow,” he warned Barton.

“I’ll carry it.”

The next morning they broke camp and packed up, heading for a nearby town where a suspicious pile of debris had been discovered. “Those are weird contacts, man,” Ward observed as Barton fitted them over his eyes. “Ooh, kinda bug-eyed alien there,” he exaggerated.

“My eyes are sensitive to light,” Barton told him matter-of-factly.

“Whoa, so you have sunglasses as contacts?” Ward surmised. “Wow, that’s really awesome. How much did they cost? A ton, right? Or are they special government-issue? Man, I would love to get my hands on a pair of those!”

“Ward, if your feet moved as fast as your mouth, we’d be halfway home by now,” Sanborn pointed out. “Ready to move out, Sarge?” Technically, Barton was in charge of their detail, but he seemed in no hurry to assert his authority.

“Yes,” he responded, hefting the bag of oranges over his shoulder, in addition to his other gear. Sanborn shook his head as he strode by; the man was not a talker, that was for sure, but maybe that would balance out Ward.

**

“—but Sandoval is like a rock star, man, when he gets that ball you know he’s going to take it to the end with _style_ , like a ballerina in cleats—“

“Ward, shut up,” Sanborn suggested. “Man is trying to set off a bomb. And you stopped making sense three paragraphs ago.”

“Sorry,” Ward replied, undampened.

“ _I don’t mind_ ,” Barton assured them over the radio. He was a block away, crouched on the ground in the bulky blast armor, carefully laying charges over a pile of debris.

“He doesn’t mind,” Ward pointed out, off the mic. “I like him. Very dry sense of humor.”

“I don’t think he’s _got_ a sense of humor,” Sanborn countered, also off the mic. They both turned slowly in the street, searching for any suspicious activity in the buildings around them. Everyone was supposed to have been evacuated from the area already, which made any sudden appearances all the more threatening. “Man gives new meaning to the word _laconic_ ,” Sanborn went on. “Not that I mind, the silence is kind of novel.”

Ward was not offended by the jab. “You should ask him for an orange sometime, they’re great,” he suggested. “He only gives me one if I ask, he never offers, it’s like a code or something. The code of the ora—Three o’clock, butcher shop doorway,” Ward interrupted himself, suddenly serious. “Dude with a cell phone. I got him. Hey, drop the phone!” he shouted, closing in on the local with his gun raised.

“Cell phone spotted,” Sanborn warned into the radio. “Evacuate area!”

“ _Roger that_ ,” Barton agreed, and Sanborn looked down the street to see him running from the debris pile as best he could in the blast armor.

Ward was still yelling at the man to drop the phone. The fact that he hadn’t obeyed yet was not a good sign and Sanborn started to close in on him also. “Barton, you are still in the kill zone,” he pointed out, glancing back.

Suddenly there was a shot—a soft but distinct pop in the still, hazy air—and the man who’d been holding the phone dropped to the ground. “Had to take him down,” Ward reported grimly.

“Good call,” Sanborn supported. “Scanning for other hostiles in the area—“ And then the bomb exploded anyway.

In real life the bombs were less dramatic than Hollywood liked to depict them, in some ways anyway. The fireball was small; the shrapnel mostly went straight up in the air, raining down on the nearby buildings like deadly hail, but no one was supposed to be up there anyway. It was really the concussive force that did the most damage, which in the moment was largely invisible and thus not exciting as a special effect, aside from the odd shattered window, rippling car roof, and human body propelled through the air at lethal speed.

“ _He was still alive, man, g-------t!_ ” Ward was saying over his radio when it came back on. “ _Alive enough to push the button—Hey, Sanborn, you okay?_ ”

“A-OK,” Sanborn confirmed shakily, standing back up. “Barton, where are you? Barton?” No answer. “Ward, you see Barton anywhere?”

“ _S—t_ ,” Ward replied, starting to run back down the street towards the debris field. “Eleven o’clock, behind that concrete barrier—“

“I see it,” Sanborn confirmed, running towards it as well. It was a boot from the blast armor, beneath some wood and stone shrapnel.

The two men arrived at the same time, frantically trying to dig under the rubble. “No way, man, no way he’s still alive,” Ward prepared himself, hands shaking as he scrabbled at the rocks.

Sanborn shoved a board aside, uncovering the faceplate of the helmet—with Barton blinking up at them from within. The two men sagged with relief, then lifted the shield. “Barton, man, are you okay?” Sanborn asked, not seeing how he really could be.

“Yes,” Barton claimed. “I don’t have the leverage to get up, though.”

With effort Sanborn and Ward cleared away enough debris that they could pull Barton to his feet. Amazingly he stayed there and detached his helmet, examining the crack in it where it had hit the concrete. “Huh,” he commented.

“D—n, that could’ve been your head,” Ward pointed out unnecessarily. “Cracked open like a watermelon!”

“We need a medic over here!” Sanborn summoned from the support unit. “You’ve got to have a concussion or something.”

“I’m okay,” Barton assured him. “I could use an orange, though. Do we have another one of these?” he asked, holding up the helmet. “I never realized they were useful before.”

**

Barton didn’t have any trouble rifling through Ward’s personal belongings without getting caught. The difficult part was making them look untouched, just the messy way Ward had left them. At first the search had been futile; but then Barton found what he was looking for—a family photo with five smiling faces. One was Specialist Ward. And one was someone else he knew.

****

A lot of soldiers, each armed to the teeth, yelling in the middle of the street as civilians fled, was never a good sign. “Ward and I dumped the shells,” Barton informed Sanborn, wandering up in partial blast armor. “What’s going on?”

Sanborn gestured to the man standing in the middle of the street, dressed in civilian clothes, arms raised high, who seemed to be the focus of everyone’s attention. “Walked up to a checkpoint and said he had a bomb strapped to his chest,” he reported. “But, he’s sorry, it’s not his fault, et cetera.”

Ward frowned. “What are they gonna do?” By necessity, checkpoint details tended to shoot first and ask questions later; it was a wonder the man wasn’t dead already, shot in the head or just blown up while he was out in the open.

“Scope,” Barton requested. Ward handed him one and he peered through it at the civilian. “Defensive wounds on his hands and face,” he noted. He caught the eye of the local lieutenant, who jogged over. “Need a bomb squad?” he offered.

“Worth a try, I guess,” the lieutenant shrugged nonchalantly. “Neighborhood’s pretty deserted”—amazingly, people tended to migrate away from the checkpoints—“but we’re evacuating the remaining civvies just in case.”

Barton cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted something at the civilian. “You speak Arabic?” Sanborn asked in surprise.

“Yes. But I don’t like repeating myself,” Barton told them, as the man had apparently not done what he’d ordered. He tried one more time.

“What are you saying?” Ward asked.

“I want him to unbutton his shirt slowly and hold it open,” Barton explained, watching through the scope.

The lieutenant pulled the translator over. “He’s a good man,” the translator insisted frantically, obviously sympathetic. “He says he has a family, a wife, four children, he doesn’t want to die—“

“Then he should do what I said,” Barton pointed out coolly. The translator immediately began repeating his instructions and the man finally began to comply.

“You just weren’t emoting enough,” Ward cracked. “Or maybe your accent s—ks.”

Barton shrugged as though that might indeed be the case. The man in the street, having unbuttoned his shirt as ordered, now held it open. Even at a distance it didn’t look good. “Five pounds of C4,” Barton relayed, looking through the scope. “Metal bands, padlocks. Maybe some kind of timer.”

“Barton, they don’t set those timers for an hour, you know,” Sanborn pointed out as Barton returned the scope and reached for his helmet. “Or even accurately. Quickest thing is to just shoot him. Before he starts moving.” The months of his duty tour had not left Sanborn immune to the suffering of the local people, or under the impression they were all the enemy; but in a guerilla war like this, he had learned all you could hope to do in any situation was minimize the damage, not prevent it entirely. One man dead now was better than a dozen dead in a few minutes if he panicked and rushed them.

“Bolt cutters,” Barton ordered. Ward went to fetch them. “I’m supposed to avoid killing innocent people, if possible,” he added to Sanborn in his curiously flat tone. “Can I use your nine mil?” Sanborn handed him the gun without further comment.

“Bolt cutters,” Ward added, handing them over.

“Give me a thirty-five meter perimeter,” Barton decided. “Translator. Tell him to get down on his knees with his hands behind his head, or I will shoot him.”

“He’s a good man, he has a family, he doesn’t want to do this—“ the translator repeated.

“I got that,” Barton told him. “You got mine?” The man nodded and started shouting instructions. Slowly, still speaking rapidly—presumably his pleas that he was a good man who didn’t want to be in this situation—the man in the street got down on his knees and put his hands behind his head.

Barton started the trek down the road, while everyone else pulled back farther to put more distance between them and the bomb. After ascertaining the man understood not to make any sudden moves, Barton knelt down to examine the device strapped to his chest.

“Timer reads two forty-five,” he stated. He lifted the man’s coat to check his back. “Ten pounds of C4 total and eight padlocks. Push the perimeter back to seventy meters.”

“ _Barton, there’s not enough time_ —“ Sanborn repeated urgently over the radio.

“Yeah, I’ll have to let it blow,” Barton agreed, wrenching through the padlocks with the bolt cutters. The locks were tougher material than the tool was really made for, however.

“Barton, he’s dead, you don’t need to die, too—“

“ _I brought some oranges in the truck,_ ” Barton said over the radio. “ _Have one ready for me after this. I’m telling him to stand up, don’t shoot him_.”

“He’s not gonna make it,” Ward predicted gloomily. “Come on, come on!”

The man with the bomb stood shakily, with Barton in his bulky blast armor working behind him. More padlocks fell to the dusty ground as those watching counted down the seconds in their heads and kept coming up with too few.

Then suddenly the bolt cutters were tossed down in two pieces. “ _Hope we have more of those_ ,” Barton commented.

“Barton, you are out of time!” Sanborn snapped. “You gotta run like h—l, man—“

“ _I will_ ,” Barton promised, far too calmly for a man who had running like h—l on his mind. Instead he pulled his gloves off and the civilian jerked as Barton yanked at the bomb. Miraculously the steel bands gave way, dropping the mass of C4 and wires to the man’s feet. And then Barton grabbed him and ran like h—l, diving over a concrete barrier just as the timer went off.

The fireball was a little more Hollywood-friendly this time.

“Barton?” Sanborn asked when the dust had cleared. “Barton, you okay?”

The radio crackled with static. “ _I’m okay_ ,” Barton assured him. “ _This guy needs a medic. Where’s my orange?_ ”

Sanborn was torn between relief and irritation. Right now relief was winning, but he had a feeling that later it would be irritation, even anger. “Ward is bringing your d—n orange,” he snapped into the radio, giving some of the irritation a preview.

“ _Oranges contain vitamins and minerals, as well as sugar and water, in a relatively hardy and easily transported_ —“

Sanborn cut off the radio before he had to listen to Barton’s Orange Speech again. It was literally the longest thing he’d ever heard him say, but clearly the man had no sense of timing. There was eccentric and then there was just plain crazy.

Ward jogged the orange over and helped Barton take off his helmet as the medics attended to the man who was almost a bomb victim. It was possible he would wish he _had_ died, by the time Army Intelligence got done questioning him.

“Man, that was—well, I was gonna say awesome, but honestly I’m not sure what really happened,” Ward admitted in a rattled tone. “Did the timer freeze or something? How’d you get the bomb off him? I was counting and you only got six of the padlocks before the bolt cutters broke.”

“Could you peel this for me?” Barton asked, indicating the orange. His fingers were bloody with cuts and gashes.

“Oh, sure, man, why didn’t you say? Hey, medic!” Ward directed the personnel towards Barton and began digging messily into the orange. “I mean, you know, savin’ a life is good and all, but no one would’ve thought twice if you’d run when the cutters broke, or when you saw the timer, or not even gone over there at all. Needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few and all.”

“Or the one,” Barton added. He let Ward put a wedge of orange in his mouth while the medics disinfected his finger wounds. “That’s a _Star Trek_ quote.”

Ward’s face lit up. “That’s right, it is! Are you a _Trek_ fan? Do you like Original or _Next Gen_ better? Something tells me you’re more of a Kirk fan.”

“Someone told me I reminded them of a Vulcan once,” Barton replied thoughtfully, which struck Ward as extremely funny.

****

Barton was not exactly the type to sit around the table in the mess hall telling stories at night. But if the weather was temperate and he didn’t have something better to do, he would hang around the edges listening. Some days the talk was about other missions, the crazy stuff they’d seen in the field; other days it was about their lives back home—usually still crazy stuff, exaggerated for humor. Other days, they were all left thinking of their families, the people who were waiting to hear from them, for them to come home. Baby pictures were passed around, photos of wives and girlfriends—Sanborn had a wife and two young kids, while Ward was single and ready to mingle.

“Hey, Barton, what about you?” asked one of the men from another unit. He was relatively new and didn’t seem to get why everyone else moaned and scoffed as he asked this. “What? The man’s gotta have a family, right?”

Barton leaned against a post in the mess pavilion, peeling his after-dinner orange. “I don’t remember,” he finally said, which was exactly what the others had come to expect from their bold but curiously robotic and impersonal EOD Master Sergeant. “Well,” he said suddenly, with a thoughtfulness that turned all eyes back on him, “there _is_ this woman.”

You might have told them their chairs had been wired with explosives, such was the reaction. “What? Man, get out! No way! Barton actually _likes_ something? You know oranges don’t count, right?”

He deftly ignored all this. “Well what’s she _like_?” Ward wanted to know, fascinated.

“She’s very brave,” Barton decided. “And funny.” The combination was somehow both melancholy and ridiculous, especially the ‘funny’ part: Barton apparently either thought _nothing_ was funny, or he just didn’t get most of the jokes thrown his way. A steady diet of Ward’s puns probably didn’t help.

“So, is this like your girlfriend?” Ward persisted. It was difficult to picture.

“No.”

“Does she even _know_ you like her?” Ward guessed.

“I don’t think so.”

The men were always full of advice on this subject, most of it entirely unhelpful. “Barton, man, you gotta let her know,” Ward insisted. “We only have one life, and you could be dead tomorrow.” Not exactly hyperbole given their jobs. “Why haven’t you told her?”

“Too scary,” Barton shrugged, before walking off into the night. With someone else the comment might have been meant ironically, but Barton didn’t have much sense of irony, either.

****

The worst was the nonspecific threat. That meant the EOD unit was out all day digging through countless buildings, gingerly poking at every pile of rubble on the side of the road, and being a nuisance to all the stony-faced locals, with nothing to show for it but frayed nerves. Half the time they never found any explosive device at all; worse was when they didn’t find it, but it was there and went off unexpectedly.

Barton didn’t seem to have any nerves to fray, as long as he got his oranges and his workout time, and he didn’t even mind Ward’s new series of jokes comparing him in blast armor to an astronaut on the moon, or some other increasingly fantastical locale. Sanborn on the other hand wanted to throttle the specialist; but if he did he’d be left to face Barton’s silence on his own, and that was creepier.

“Any sign of the IED?” Sanborn asked from the roof of a building as Barton trundled along down the street below.

“I think he’d _say_ ,” Ward responded instead, from his position on top of another building. “I mean, he’d _say_ if he saw something, wouldn’t you, B?”

“ _Yes_ ,” came the reply.

“Whose question are you answering?” Sanborn checked; he’d learned to do that the hard way.

“ _Ward’s_.”

“What’s that pile five meters ahead, at two o’clock?” Sanborn persisted.

“ _A dead goat_.”

“Could have a bomb in it,” Ward suggested gleefully. “Maybe you should check.”

“You’re gonna clean the suit later, Ward,” Sanborn threatened.

“Negative on the goat, Barton,” Ward reversed. “Don’t check it.”

“ _I’m going around the corner_ ,” Barton informed them, and they moved to new vantage points on the roofs.

“ _Brave EOD, this is Foxtrot 12_ ,” crackled the radio. “ _Any sign of the bomb?_ ”

“Negative, Foxtrot 12,” Sanborn replied. “You should see our man approaching your position.”

“ _Roger that_ ,” the soldier agreed as Barton appeared at the end of the street they were blocking off.

Suddenly there was some commotion on the other side of the barricade, people shouting and animals bleating as a taxi cab careened closer. “Vehicle approaching checkpoint,” Sanborn relayed to his team. The Foxtrot 12 unit was shouting at the driver to stop, to no avail. “Ward, you got a sight on the driver?” Sanborn asked, unable to find a clear shot himself.

“Negative,” Ward responded in frustration.

“Barton, get out of the way,” Sanborn suggested as the taxi breached the barricade and spun down the empty street.

“ _Rogue vehicle, repeat, rogue vehicle_ ,” warned one of the ground troops. “ _Taxi with local driver has broken through checkpoint. Does anyone have a clear shot?_ ”

“ _I do_.” Barton’s voice. And in the middle of the street he pulled his nine millimeter pistol and pointed it straight at the approaching taxi.

“Barton, get out of the _way_!” Ward repeated. “If he makes the turn I can get him—“

“ _EOD has pulled his nine mil on rogue vehicle_ ,” one of the ground troops relayed to his unit. “ _Taxi is slowing. Taxi is stopped_.”

Men scrambled around the building roofs, trying to find a position that would let them see inside the vehicle without being too close to it. Barton stood just inches away from the front fender, arm raised to point his gun directly at the driver. The only reason not to shoot him right now was because they didn’t know what it might set off—a fairly compelling reason in Barton’s position.

He lifted the visor of his helmet and spoke in Arabic. Then he fired a warning shot into the dirt beside the driver’s-side wheel. Slowly the driver put his hands on the wheel.

“ _I’m going to open the door and get him out of the car_ ,” Barton announced. “ _Can someone come out here and get him?_ ”

“You think the bomb’s in the car?” Sanborn asked.

“ _Maybe_ ,” Barton replied, maddeningly.

“ _Roger that, we will retrieve the driver_ ,” one of the ground troops offered.

Keeping his gun on the driver Barton opened the car door, everyone holding their breath after he squeezed the door handle in case that was the trigger. Slowly the driver climbed out, hands held high per Barton’s instructions. “Where do you want him?” he asked the ground unit.

“Move driver ten meters towards the checkpoint,” a soldier advised, members of his unit already assembling to take the man into custody.

“Gotta lock on him,” Ward announced. There were probably about half a dozen guns locked on the man now, not counting Barton’s own. He was about to have a very bad day—you just didn’t run a military barricade.

Barton saw him safely surrounded by Foxtrot 12, then put his pistol away and went back to the vehicle. He stared at it for a long moment, then started opening the trunk and doors. Boredom quickly set in for those watching, after the adrenaline rush of stopping the taxi began to fade. Sanborn resisted the urge to ask Barton if he’d found anything yet—clearly, he hadn’t, because he or Ward would’ve heard about it by now.

“ _EOD is removing his helmet_ ,” one of the ground troops advised in a questioning tone, and Sanborn turned away from his sweep of the skyline to check on Barton.

“That’s how he rolls. Says he can _smell_ the bombs,” Sanborn reported dryly.

“ _Roger that_ ,” the soldier replied dubiously, watching Barton crawl into the car. He squirmed around inside for a couple minutes, then came back out, shut the hood, and climbed up on top of it, staring at the roof speculatively.

Ward couldn’t stand it anymore. “B, you got something, or you just pretending to be a moonman hood ornament?”

Barton brandished a knife from his belt and started to slit the canvas covering the roof. “Yeah, I got something,” he finally said, carefully cutting around the edge of the fabric.

“IED?” Sanborn confirmed.

“Yes.”

“IED detected in vehicle,” Sanborn relayed to Foxtrot 12. “Prepare to set new perimeter. Barton, perimeter?”

“The edge of town ought to be safe,” Barton replied flatly, pulling back the canvas roof to reveal a very large collection of C4 bricks.

“Oh s—t,” Ward summarized.

“ _Bravo EOD, define perimeter_ ,” a ground soldier prompted. They didn’t have as good a view of the bomb as those above it. “ _What is the nature of the IED?_ ”

“Uh, the nature of the IED is, we are _all_ gonna wish we were wearing moon suits if this thing goes off,” Ward answered.

“ _Repeat?_ ”

“Foxtrot 12, pull back three blocks, you are currently in the kill zone,” Sanborn told them, when he got his voice back.

“ _Repeat_ ,” said the soldier. “ _Did you say three_ blocks _?_ ”

“Four blocks would be better,” Sanborn corrected. “Are all these buildings evacuated?”

“ _Only the ones facing the street_ ,” reported Foxtrot 12. “ _What size charge are we looking at here?_ ”

Barton was lying across the hood and windshield, surveying the bomb components at almost eye level. “Fifty pounds of C4. And a lot of wires.”

There was a pause, then the Foxtrot 12 soldiers began backing up their vehicles. “ _We’ll begin evacuation of all buildings in a two-block radius_ ,” the soldier announced.

Of course, the other members of the EOD unit wouldn’t be evacuating. They would be standing there on the rooftops, looking right down into the mouth of the bomb, waiting for Barton to figure something out. Or tell them to start running.

Half an hour later. Barton had moved over to the trunk and was staring the device down from that angle. Occasionally he would reach out for something—with bare hands—and sometimes he would stop before he got there, apparently thinking better of touching anything.

“Could we just drive it outside of town?” Ward asked, busily thinking up alternatives to standing around waiting.

“Drive a live bomb through town? That’s a no,” Sanborn countered.

“Or have it airlifted out,” Ward went on. “Or, pour a bunch of concrete on top of it, like they do with nuclear reactors.”

Sanborn tried to ignore him. “Barton, what’s going on?” he asked. “You close to finding something or not?”

“Yes,” Barton replied, so they both turned to look down on him as he pulled a pair of wire cutters from his belt.

“Barton, are you going to cut a wire?!” Sanborn demanded. Maybe it was obvious, but the man hadn’t given them any warning.

“Yes.” Sanborn and Ward flattened themselves on their roofs, waiting tensely for the next sound.

Silence. “Barton, did you cut it?” Ward finally asked.

“Yes,” Barton answered. “I’ve removed the detonator. Can someone bring me an orange?”

He knew where he would love to shove that orange, Sanborn thought darkly, listening to Ward’s relieved laughter over the radio.

****

“What is that?” Sanborn muttered wearily as the Humvee crested a ridge.

“SUV ahead,” Ward called down from the gun turret. “Five armed guys in native clothes.”

“Private military contractors,” Barton predicted.

“Based on _what_?” Sanborn wanted to know. He wasn’t surprised when Barton just gave him a look instead of answering. He also wouldn’t be surprised if Barton was right anyway.

They still got out of the Humvee in full gear with guns drawn. And naturally, the men turned out to be British PMCs whose vehicle had broken down while they were transporting two captured Al-Qaeda members to the nearest base to claim their reward money.

Sanborn did not want to be out in the middle of the desert waiting for someone else to change their tire. He appreciated that they were on the same side and could only hope friendly help would arrive should a similar fate befall _them_ ; but Ward was getting squirrelly while they waited and even the normally ice-cold Barton was scanning the horizon like he felt a storm coming.

“What’s up with you?” Sanborn finally asked him.

“Someone’s out there,” Barton replied vaguely.

“Where?” No answer. “There’s _goats_ out there, man,” he pointed out. “Maybe that’s what your Spidey sense is picking up. Or the goat-herders.”

“I don’t think so,” Barton countered. “Where’s my scope?”

Before Sanborn could find it there was a pop and a hiss, and one of the PMCs dropped to the ground. “Contact left!” shouted their leader as bullets pelted the soft dust. The men began firing back in that direction, even though they couldn’t see anything. Swiftly they grabbed what gear they could and dove for a depression in the earth that gave them a little bit of cover.

“That house over there,” the PMC leader pointed out, staring at it down the scope of his long-range rifle. “Eight hundred fifty meters. Movement on the roof.”

“I see it,” his compatriot with a separate scope agreed. They fired off a few shots, enough to let the house’s occupants know they were onto them. The response was another spray of deadly gunfire.

“Captives on the move!” someone shouted, as the hooded and bound prisoners stumbled away from the vehicles.

“They won’t get far on foot,” Sanborn pointed out, when the PMC leader left his rifle to chase after them.

“They’re worth five hundred thousand quid a piece!” the man protested, before gunning them down across the packed earth. “Just remembered, that’s five hundred thousand dead _or_ alive,” he replied with a grin, returning to cover. “Now where were we—“

A sniper shot picked him off and sent him rolling down the slope. “Need some help here!” shouted one of his men.

“He’s dead,” countered Sanborn. “Who’s got the radio? We need some back-up!”

“We’re not getting back-up!” snapped another PMC working the radio. “Alpha Central told us to ‘sit tight’!”

“S—t,” muttered Sanborn. “I’ll take the rifle. Barton, take the scope.”

The two of them crawled to the edge of the depression, peering out across the scrub to the small mud-brick house. “Movement on the roof,” Barton reported calmly.

“I see it,” Sanborn confirmed. He aimed the rifle carefully and pulled the trigger. A moment later the round punched the corner of the roof, spraying plaster everywhere.

“One down,” Barton told him, when one of the two vague figures on the roof ceased moving. “Left window. Incoming.” He shoved Sanborn aside and rolled away himself; the bullet lodged itself harmlessly in the dirt.

“Thanks,” Sanborn told him, business-like, lining the shot back up.

It was so quiet in the desert, away from the noise and traffic of the city—quieter than you would think a war zone could be. The men on the ground were silent and the bleating of goats carried faintly on the slight breeze. Even the shots, when they came, were muffled, not the loud bangs of a movie. Sanborn retracted the bolt on the rifle and heard only the hollow click of an empty chamber. “I’m out of ammo,” he told Barton, tossing aside the cartridge.

“Ward!” Barton summoned. “More ammo.” There was no response and Barton took his eyes off the targets to glance back over his shoulder. “Specialist,” he prompted. “Ammo!”

Finally Ward snapped into action. “Uh, right, looking for it,” he called back. “I don’t see any!”

“Check the PMC leader,” Barton suggested. It was _his_ rifle, after all.

“Need that ammo, Ward!” Sanborn reminded him tersely.

“I got it, I got it!” Ward said. “Here!”

Barton reached down to take the cartridge. “Wait,” he told Ward. “The blood’s going to jam it. Clean the blood off.”

Ward finally took back the cartridge Barton shook at him, but seemed hesitant about how to do what he’d been ordered. “It’s not coming off!”

“Spit on the bullets and rub the blood off!” Sanborn snapped. He didn’t like being able to see all the flickers of movement in that house, with no way to do anything about them.

Barton jumped down from his position and approached Ward. “Are you injured?” he asked, taking the cartridge from him. He pried several of the bullets out and began cleaning them.

“No, I’m fine, man,” Ward insisted, following his example. “Just… this heat, man, and the f‑‑‑‑‑g desert—I _hate_ the desert—“ Barton blinked at him, not one to point out the obvious contradiction of serving in a desert war. “Hardly got any spit left anyway,” he muttered.

“Have an orange,” Barton offered, producing one seemingly from nowhere. “It contains water and sugar, as well as vitamins and min—“

“Yeah, thanks, man,” Ward sighed, taking the fruit and handing Barton back the bullets.

Barton scrambled back to his position next to Sanborn, handing him one bullet to load right away and snapping the rest back into the cartridge for him. “Something’s wrong with Ward,” he commented.

Sanborn took another shot, which dinged the wall of the house but didn’t appear to hit anyone. “Yeah, he’s got this thing about being stuck in the desert with no water,” he told Barton, lining up another shot. “It’s, like, his trigger thing.”

“That’s inconvenient,” Barton noted, without judgment.

“A few months ago his Humvee broke down on patrol,” Sanborn relayed, eyes on his target. “He got pretty sick. Heatstroke or whatever. Now he’s real jumpy about it. Right window?”

Barton didn’t respond immediately, and when Sanborn glanced at him he saw the man was deep in thought. Sanborn had learned that was not a good sign. “You’ve got some crazy-a-s plan, don’t you?” he accused.

“You won’t like it,” Barton agreed.

“Tell me anyway.”

“We could be here a long time, picking off the snipers,” Barton pointed out. “Or I could go up to the house and kill them.”

It wasn’t so much a plan as random words strung together, in Sanborn’s opinion. “You’re going to sneak up on them across eight hundred fifty meters of open ground and kill multiple armed hostiles, by yourself?” he checked. “What, with your bare hands?”

“I thought a knife would be helpful,” Barton replied flatly. “Then I could use one of _their_ guns, if necessary.”

Sanborn looked at him, then looked again. “I think you’re serious,” he surmised.

“Yes.”

“I don’t even know how to object to that,” Sanborn admitted honestly.

Barton decided to take that as agreement; Sanborn meant it more as resignation. “Don’t shoot me,” Barton instructed, sliding back down the ridge. He began to strip off his helmet, bulky vest, and other gear as Ward and the remaining PMCs watched in confusion.

“What are you doing, B?” Ward asked finally, when Barton strapped a large knife to his back.

“Covert attack,” Barton replied succinctly. “When I signal you can join me.” With that he hopped out of the depression.

Ward crawled up beside Sanborn. “What the h—l was he talking about, covert attack?” he wanted to know, scanning the area with the scope.

“I don’t know, man, you know how he gets,” Sanborn muttered. “You see him anywhere?”

Ward looked around. “No. He was going to the house, right? He said we should join him when he signaled.”

Sanborn rolled his eyes. “Well, we aren’t gonna sit out here forever,” he decided, “waiting for Superman to save the day.”

“I think he’s more like Batman,” Ward opined. “Dark and brooding and deadly.”

Sanborn gave him a look and was about to make a sarcastic remark when a movement at the house grabbed their attention. They might have heard shouting, and definitely gunfire, though no evidence it was directed their way. A moment later a white piece of cloth began waving at the edge of the roof, followed by Barton climbing all the way up on top of the building and signaling to them.

“Son of a b---h,” Sanborn remarked in surprise.

“How did he get there so fast?” Ward asked, mystified. “Without being seen?”

“You think he’s—“ Sanborn cut himself off and shook his head. “No, maybe he’s crazy, but he’s not in with the insurgents.” Ward stared at him in shock. “Don’t tell me it never occurred to _you_ ,” Sanborn went on, slightly defensive. “All those late-night jogs, speaking Arabic—“

“No, man, it never occurred to me,” Ward insisted stubbornly. “He’s—you know, he’s a good guy.”

“I agree, I agree,” Sanborn assured him, climbing down from the ridge. Well, it wasn’t the exact phrase he would’ve used, but he understood Ward’s point. Barton had his own agenda, but Sanborn didn’t really think he would sell them out.

They loaded up the Humvee with whatever they could carry, leaving a couple of the PMCs behind to finish changing the tire on their SUV. They didn’t seem to fully trust that Barton had neutralized the threat, and Sanborn couldn’t blame them. He told Ward to stay inside the Humvee just in case, instead of manning the gun turret.

Sanborn parked a few meters from the house and exited the vehicle with his gun drawn. “Barton!” he shouted.

“Right here,” called a voice from inside. “Don’t shoot me.” Barton emerged to lean nonchalantly in the doorway, eating an orange. Blood was spattered across his clothes, though he seemed to have tried to remove it from his face, mostly.

“Are you okay?” Ward asked uncertainly.

“Yes,” he responded, as though it was an odd question. “Five hostiles, all dead.”

“You killed them all?” asked one of the PMCs.

“Sanborn shot the one on the roof,” Barton corrected blandly.

Sanborn pushed past him into the small dwelling and immediately wished he hadn’t. “J---s C‑‑‑‑t,” whispered Ward, following him. The single room was a bloodbath, with four bodies crumpled on the floor. At least one was a woman—which didn’t mean she wasn’t an armed hostile by any means, it was just a little less expected.

“Is your SUV fixed?” Barton asked the PMCs. “We should get back to base before sunset.”

“Say, I thought you said you guys were EOD,” another PMC commented quietly to Sanborn, surveying the damage in the house. Ward had quickly stepped back outside.

“We are.”

The man shrugged as if to say, sure, have it your way. “This is black ops work,” he claimed in a whisper, glancing back out the door at Barton, who was talking to Ward. “That disappearing trick, hand-to-hand wetwork—I’ve seen Special Forces guys, I know how they operate. Where was your master sergeant stationed before?”

“I don’t know,” Sanborn responded angrily. Something about the man’s tone rubbed him the wrong way, even if the words were more sensible than anything Sanborn had heard yet. “I don’t care. Let’s get back to the base.”

****

Rachel’s cell phone rang and she saw it was an unknown caller, intriguing as this was her work phone. “Hello?” she answered curiously, for once glad the call was being monitored.

“ _Hello_.”

She was relieved, but also puzzled, to recognize the voice. “Jeremy? Are you back in town?”

“ _No_.”

The phone was not really the best medium for communicating with Jeremy. “Are you still on your mission?” she asked in confusion.

“ _Yes_.”

“Are you okay?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Are you supposed to be calling me?” she tried, with some suspicion.

Jeremy skipped over that, which gave Rachel her answer; she just hoped he didn’t get into too much trouble over it. “ _What’s your favorite color?_ ” he wanted to know.

“Teal,” Rachel responded indulgently. “That’s blue-green.”

“ _I know_ ,” he assured her. “ _You wear a lot of that color_.”

“What’s _your_ favorite color?” Rachel countered, already guessing the answer.

“ _Orange_.”

“So predictable,” she teased. “I knew ‘tiger’ was a good nickname for you.” She paused and heard noises in the background. “Are you on a military base?” Having grown up on them she was familiar with the soundtrack.

“ _I can’t tell you where I am_ ,” he responded immediately.

“Sorry, I know,” Rachel reversed. They were both quiet for a long moment. “Did you need anything in particular, or…?”

“ _I wanted to hear your voice_.”

Rachel smiled at this flat admission, though she was not without some bafflement over it. “Well, I’ve been packing to go on vacation,” she told him idly.

“ _Where are you going?_ ” he wanted to know.

“I can’t tell you that,” Rachel claimed playfully. She could imagine Jeremy popping up on her cruise ship and scaring everyone.

“ _Oh_.”

He sounded so disappointed that she immediately felt bad. “I’ll be back before you return, though,” she promised. “And then you can _not_ tell me all about your exciting mission.”

“ _I should go_ ,” Jeremy decided after a moment.

“Okay. Goodbye. I’m glad you’re okay,” Rachel said. He hung up without responding.

On the military base in Iraq, Jeremy deftly snapped the disposable cell phone into several pieces, which he would discard at different locations later. “Hey, B, whatcha doing?” Specialist Ward asked cheerfully, approaching across the yard.

“Thinking.”

“That’s a dangerous activity,” he joked. “Were you talking on the phone just now? I didn’t interrupt you, did I? Hey, were you talking to that girl you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Hot d—n,” Ward grinned. “Really? ‘Cause I didn’t know if you were serious or not about that, brave and funny and scary and all.” Barton did not really respond. “Well, come on, tell me something else about her,” he pressed as they walked back to the barracks. “Is she military? Is she in the States? She’s not married, is she? ‘Cause _that’s_ a big mess. What’s her job? What’s she look like?”

“I can’t tell you what she looks like,” Barton replied, as though it were a state secret. He didn’t seem to mind the questions in general, though.

“Okay, sure,” Ward agreed readily. “But is she like a girl-next-door type, or a supermodel type, or athletic—“ It was difficult to imagine what sort of woman would attract Barton’s attention.

“I don’t know.”

And apparently it would _stay_ difficult. “Well, you think she’s attractive, right?” Ward pestered as Barton changed into a dark sweatsuit. The fact that it was plain, not marked with the words ‘US Army’ like their other clothes, did not really register in his mind. “I mean, you like her, you must think she’s pretty.”

Barton indicated yes. “She smells nice,” he finally offered, which Ward felt was a victory.

“Well, you ought to tell her you like her,” he advised knowledgeably. “I can’t believe you’re too chickens—t to tell her!”

“Personal rejection is frightening,” Barton observed, going back outside.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Ward agreed. “Especially if you really like someone. Hey, you want to shoot some hoops?” he asked as they passed the basketball court. “I could round up some other guys—“

“I can’t play sports,” Barton informed him. “I might forget it’s just a game and hurt someone.”

“Okay,” Ward said dubiously.

“I’m going for a run,” Barton added, and Ward took the hint and stopped following him. Instead he headed back to the barracks, looking for Sanborn and some of the others to pass his new Barton quotes onto.

****

Forrest could hardly contain himself when he found Sanborn and Ward. “Wait ‘til you see what f‑‑‑‑‑g awesome prank I pulled,” he snickered.

“Oh G-d, what now?” Sanborn asked with disapproval, while Ward responded with more enthusiasm. It seemed like there was always at least one practical joker in the group wherever you went—sometimes they could indeed be pretty funny, but when a prank went wrong the vibe could turn ugly, and that was the last thing they needed in a combat situation.

“I hid Barton’s oranges!” Forrest sniggered, trying to keep his voice down. Slowly Ward and Sanborn wheeled to face him, identical looks of horror on their faces. Forrest’s enjoyment dimmed somewhat. “You know, how he’s always eating oranges and talking about oranges and…” He trailed off.

“I think that was a bad idea,” Sanborn understated.

“I have to agree,” Ward admitted. “Barton isn’t the type to appreciate it. Or people messing with his stuff.”

“You should put them back before he notices,” Sanborn advised.

“I think it’s too late,” Ward predicted, as Barton walked out of his barracks with a serious expression. Even more serious than usual, that is. He scanned the nearby groups of soldiers for a guilty conscience and immediately zeroed in on Forrest. There was something very dangerous about him, even as he just stood there on the stoop staring at them.

“Don’t run,” Ward told him. “Then he’ll have to chase you. Just walk up and tell him you’ll go get his oranges.”

“He probably won’t be mad,” Sanborn suggested. “He’s pretty even-tempered, really. But he doesn’t like to be messed with.”

Forrest did not heed their advice, however. Barton took one step off the stoop and Forrest immediately broke and ran. Barton responded by giving chase. He breezed past Sanborn and Ward, who were futilely calling for him to stop. Forrest skittered through the mess pavilion; Barton raced after him, with Ward and Sanborn doggedly following—though neither could’ve said exactly what their goal was.

Exercising a little smarts Forrest pelted into a barracks and bolted the door behind himself, escaping out the back way in the hopes Barton would be stymied long enough for him to get out of sight. He had underestimated who he was dealing with, though, in more ways than one. Ward was expecting Barton to simply bulldoze _through_ the door; but instead he shot _upwards_ , vaulting himself onto the roof with inhuman agility. He scrambled across it, as sure-footed as a mountain goat, and when he reached the other side he just _leaped_ , landing lightly in the dirt like a jungle predator. He glanced around, spotted Forrest again, and charged.

“Did you see—“ Ward began, boggled by the roof jump. But then Barton hit Forrest like a freight train, knocking him flat and crouching over him as if deciding which tender parts to bite into first.

“Have you seen my oranges?” Barton asked the man in an incongruously normal tone. He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“Yes,” Forrest answered in defeat, his face squashed into the ground.

“Where are they?”

“In the equipment shed near the tennis court,” Forrest revealed pitifully.

Barton stood and stepped off him, then offered the man a hand up. Ward and Sanborn finally arrived, not sure if they should be relieved that Forrest was still _able_ to stand, or worried that Barton was going to do something worse to him. Apparently Forrest wasn’t certain either, because Barton only had to stare at him impassively for a few seconds before he jabbered, “Sorry, man, it was just a joke! It won’t happen again, promise.”

“Mm-hmm,” Barton replied vaguely, then turned and left, heading for the tennis courts.

As soon as he was gone Forrest swayed on his feet and Ward and Sanborn conveyed him to a stack of crates to sit down. “You okay, man?” Ward asked unnecessarily. “You are pale as death.”

“Did he—land on anything, or--?” Sanborn suggested.

“That was the scariest d—n thing that ever happened to me,” Forrest admitted, trying to get his breath back. “I swear to G-d I thought he was gonna snap my neck.”

“Well, not ‘til you told him where the oranges were,” Ward reasoned unhelpfully.

****

“Your phone’s ringing,” Eliza pointed out with some annoyance. “Why do you have your phone with you? Is that your _work_ phone? G-d, relax a little.”

Rachel rolled her eyes at her sister and tried to read the screen in the blazing sunlight. She thought it said ‘unknown caller’ again. “Hello?”

“ _Hello_.”

Rachel smiled, leaning back in her deck chair. “Well, hello, tiger,” she greeted.

“Is it Jeremy again?” Eliza wanted to know, in a gossipy tone.

Rachel glared at her over her sunglasses. “Are you still out on your mission?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jeremy replied. “ _Are you on vacation now?_ ”

“I sure am,” Rachel assured him cheerfully.

“ _Have you been drinking alcohol?_ ” he asked in a suspicious tone.

Rachel slurped her mai tai. “I have been consuming a couple of adult beverages, yes, but in a thoroughly responsible manner.”

“Drunkface,” Eliza contradicted in a singsong tone. Rachel shushed her.

“ _Is that your sister?_ ” Jeremy guessed.

“Yes. Pretend she isn’t there,” Rachel instructed, trying to roll over so her back was to Eliza. “Let’s talk about _you_ ,” she insisted. “Are the other soldiers treating you nicely?”

“ _There was an incident with my oranges that won’t be repeated_ ,” Jeremy answered darkly, and Rachel giggled against her will, trying to disguise it belatedly with a cough. “ _Are you on a boat?_ ” he surmised. “ _It sounds like you are_.”

“I can’t reveal that information,” Rachel told him, trying to sound deadly serious. “Ow!” she exclaimed, as Eliza snapped her rear end with a towel.

“ _Are you alright?_ ” Jeremy asked, though he didn’t sound so much concerned as bemused.

“Yes,” Rachel assured him grumpily, starting to stand up. “I just need to go to a _less crowded_ part of the, er, location—“

“ _Don’t walk around the ship if you’ve been drinking_ ,” Jeremy advised. “ _You could lose your balance and fall overboard_.”

Rachel felt this was sound advice and stayed seated, especially as the deck chair seemed so prone to moving on its own. “How are you?” she wanted to know, suddenly feeling earnest. “Are you okay? Do you let the medics treat you if you get injured?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he promised. “ _Only minor injuries_.”

“Do you have your hair cut short?” she asked in the same tone, slightly out of place now.

“ _Yes, it’s a standard military haircut_ ,” Jeremy replied. “ _It will grow back_ ,” he added hesitantly, in case she was disappointed.

However, Rachel sighed fondly. “I look forward to seeing it,” she claimed. “Crewcuts remind me of all those boys I knew in my misspent youth.”

“G-d, hang up,” Eliza advised. “Guys don’t like to hear about guys from your past.”

“Jeremy’s not a _guy_ ,” Rachel hissed at her—at least not in Eliza’s narrowly-defined sense of the word. “Sorry,” she said into the phone. “Where were we?”

“ _You mentioned your misspent youth_ ,” Jeremy reminded her, and Rachel thought she detected a faint trace of amusement in his tone. “ _Did it involve a lot of adult beverages?_ ”

“It did,” Rachel admitted, “often _not_ consumed in a responsible manner.” She thought she heard shouting in the background. “What was that?”

“ _Oh, nothing_ ,” Jeremy assured her calmly. “ _I should go_.”

“Okay,” Rachel agreed. “Stay safe. Bye.” He hung up.

“He _likes_ you, and you like _him_ ,” Eliza teased, in what Rachel thought was a very immature manner.

“Shut it,” Rachel advised, laying back out in her deck chair and reaching for the mai tai.

****

The warehouse contained an impressive collection of bomb-making supplies, most of them stamped by the US Army. And for ‘impressive,’ read ‘frightening.’ The coffee pot was still hot and the cigarette still smoking so the bomb makers hadn’t gone far, but Security could track them down; the EOD team’s job was to deal with the explosives.

“I found something,” Ward called in a strangled tone, and Sanborn prayed it wasn’t a bomb with fifteen seconds on the timer. He and Barton pushed past some plastic curtains and found Ward staring at a grisly sight—the bloodied body of a boy on a table, a long gash in his chest sewn up with cord.

“Body bomb,” Sanborn realized with disgust.

“I know this kid,” Ward claimed with growing horror. “I know this kid! It’s the little base rat who hustles DVDs!” The others looked at him. “Yeah, yeah, he plays soccer, he calls himself Beckham. I just bought a DVD from him a few days ago…”

Barton looked at the boy’s face, calculating. “You think it’s really him?” Sanborn asked, hoping he would have sense enough to say no, whatever he really thought.

“No, I don’t think so,” Barton decided.

“It’s him, man, it’s him!” Ward insisted frantically. “I was just playing soccer with him, I bet him five bucks he couldn’t catch the ball and he did—“

“Barton said it isn’t,” Sanborn repeated firmly. “He knows what he’s talking about.” He wheeled on Barton seeking guidance. “What should we do, Sarge?”

Barton shrugged a little. “Call for a truck. Take all the ordnance back to the base. Including the bomb in here.” He indicated the body.

“So we have to… cut him back open?” Ward checked, swallowing hard.

“I’ll do it,” Barton assured him. “You and Sanborn start packing.”

“Come on, man,” Sanborn encouraged, pulling Ward away from the body as Barton drew a knife nonchalantly.

They packed the remaining bomb casings and detonation cords as quickly as they safely could, always on the alert for booby traps or the bomb-makers returning in force—with the infantry men patrolling the outside of the building it was unlikely they would be outgunned, but you didn’t exactly want to be caught in a firefight around all these explosives. Ward was subdued, working without his usual chatter, and he cast occasional glances towards the plastic curtain behind which Barton was moving. Sanborn cast occasional glances at _him_ , increasingly worried about his friend’s state of mind.

“Got it,” Barton announced. “Are there any civilians outside?”

Ward returned from carrying a load to the truck and Sanborn posed the question to him. “Yeah, Doc Cambridge is chatting with a bunch of them,” he replied. “Why?”

Barton stepped out from behind the curtain, wiping his hands on a rag. “Find an older couple and get them to come in here,” he instructed mysteriously. Ward went back out again.

“That’s everything,” Sanborn reported. “Except this.” He wrapped another rag around the bomb Barton had removed from the body. “What do you want with the civvies?” he asked.

“I’ll see if they’ll take the body,” he replied with a shrug. “Do you have any cash on you?”

Sanborn pulled out a few crumpled bills, not sure how much he was expected to contribute. Barton took them without comment. “Comin’ in with two civvies,” Ward announced.

“I’ll be by the truck,” Sanborn decided, exiting with the bloody bomb in hand.

“Barton? You want them to stay out here, or…?” Ward questioned.

Barton replied in Arabic, gesturing for the confused and wary couple to come closer, behind the plastic curtain. Ward couldn’t help joining them as well, staring unblinkingly at the body on the table, chest now pried open like a grotesque horror movie special effect. The woman gasped and turned away to her husband’s arms, while he forced himself to gaze on it.

“Do they know him?” Ward guessed wildly. “They know him, don’t they? Beckham? Beckham?” He gestured at the body desperately.

Barton put a hand on his chest to push him back slightly, then draped a cloth over the boy’s head and torso. “Do you have any cash?” he asked Ward, after speaking again to the couple.

“Yeah, what for?” Ward wanted to know, pulling it out.

“To pay for the burial, or give to his family if they know him,” Barton explained matter-of-factly, adding Ward’s cash to Sanborn’s. He tried to hand the money to the man, but he shook his head and held up his hand.

“What’s wrong?” Ward demanded. “Why won’t they bury him?” Barton offered the money again but it was again refused. Impatiently Ward snatched it from him and thrust it in the couple’s face. “Take it, take the money! Take it!”

Barton smoothly slid between them, pushing Ward back with his shoulder and speaking in Arabic. Ward didn’t understand any of it but suspected it was about him. Finally the couple nodded reluctantly and accepted the cash. Barton offered to carry the body out for them but the man refused, picking it up with a surprising strength and gentleness.

“Two civilians exiting with a body,” Barton reported over the radio. “Ward and I are behind them.”

“ _Roger that_ ,” Sanborn replied.

Barton put his hand on Ward’s shoulder. “Calm down. You’re making people nervous.”

“It’s just—I know that kid,” Ward repeated as they reached the street. The local man laid the body in his wagon and he and several others began to wheel it away. “Did they just grab him off the street? What about the guy he works for—how do we know he’s not selling base secrets to the insurgents, huh?”

Barton ignored his questions. “Get in the Humvee,” he directed. Sanborn was already waiting behind the wheel. “Cambridge!” he called to the psychiatrist who was still standing in the middle of the street, watching the departing wagon. “Time to go.”

That was when the bomb blew.

Probably it had been in one of the many bags of trash lying around in the street, or maybe under a pile of rubble left by previous blasts. It erupted with a pop like an overinflated balloon, spraying the Humvee with dust and small stones—momentarily blinding, but no danger to anyone inside it.

Outside was another matter.

“IED, IED!” Sanborn shouted as they scrambled out of the vehicle. The soldiers on the street were yelling to one another, looking out for suspicious figures in the buildings nearby and checking to see if any of their number had been injured.

“Cambridge!” Ward called. “Cambridge, come out, it’s over!” He scooped the man’s helmet up from the street, trying to remember where he’d last been standing. “Cambridge! Cambridge!”

Barton grabbed his arm to keep him from wandering away. “He’s dead,” he pointed out flatly. There were bound to be some remains somewhere nearby, but the medics could recover those. “Ward! He’s dead. Come on.”

Ward’s face crumpled as the realization hit him and he fought to keep himself together—a battle he was clearly losing. Cambridge had been trying to help him; it was Ward who’d bluntly told the doctor he _couldn’t_ help until he knew what they were really dealing with out in the field. So Cambridge had come out in the field.

And now he was dead.

Ward grabbed Barton’s arm, clinging to it to stay upright. “He’s dead,” he repeated. “We’re all dead. I’m dead, you’re dead—“ It seemed so inevitable, that a place where people tossed bombs along the roadside, hid them in the bodies of children, not caring who was caught by them, would kill them all eventually.

“We’re not dead,” Barton countered, shaking him. “Your parents aren’t dead. Your sisters aren’t dead.” He dragged the younger man back to the Humvee and into the back seat. “Let’s go,” he told Sanborn, trying to keep Ward contained.

****

Ward had been watching and checking. He wasn’t really the suspicious type; but neither was he as laidback as he liked to pretend. He noticed things—like when Barton went jogging late at night and didn’t return for hours. Who jogged _that_ much? Ward tried following him a few times but always lost him in the shadows, and he began to wonder if Barton was actually leaving the base—which was not only against regulations, but also incredibly dangerous. A lone US soldier on the streets of Baghdad at night didn’t stand much chance of making it back to base in one piece—though Barton always did.

Ward was beginning to doubt he would be so lucky.

_Stop being so paranoid_ , he told himself. It couldn’t be that _every_ pair of eyes was on him, that _every_ pair was hostile. Though unlike in many places, a crowded public street actually felt _less_ secure, as he imagined a mob forming around him while the more moderate people just hurried away. He ducked down a dark side street instead, liking his chances against one or two muggers better.

“Stop.” The barrel of a nine mil pointed directly at his temple, at his forehead when he turned.

“Barton?” he asked, peering at the dark-cloaked figure in the shadows.

A hand clamped down on his arm and dragged him into the alley. “You’re compromising me,” he was informed coolly, and the relief he felt at realizing it really _was_ Barton was countered when Barton did not, in fact, stop pointing the gun at his head.

“I wanted to see where you went!” Ward tried to explain. He had to admit it sounded a little stupid now.

“How did you get off the base?” Barton wanted to know.

“Um, I hopped in the back of one of the vendors’ trucks,” Ward admitted. “B, could you—“

The gun didn’t waver. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Um… no one?” Ward tried, not sure what he was getting at. Desperation inspired him. “I told Sanborn I was following you—“

The hammer drew back. “You’re lying.”

“Okay, okay, no one knows I’m here!” Ward confessed. He was convinced this place would kill him; but he hadn’t imagined it would do so _this_ way, shot by a fellow soldier in a dark alley, left to rot as Sanborn wondered what the h—l had happened to him, and Barton probably did absolutely nothing different—

The gun reset and Barton dropped his arm. Ward sagged back against the wall, blinded by relief. “You wanted to know where I went,” Barton repeated flatly.

“Yeah, man, I just… jogging? Seemed kind of crazy,” Ward replied, still getting his breath back.

“You’re very curious.” This was not necessarily a good thing. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“Um, well, I don’t know,” Ward claimed. “Maybe, um, buying oranges.” Barton raised an eyebrow. “Talking to the locals. It always seems like you know people, on the streets—“ Barton tilted his head slightly, as if Ward wasn’t supposed to notice things like that. He stopped talking quickly.

A voice called softly from a nearby doorway and Ward saw a woman duck back inside when she spotted him. Barton said something to her and she leaned back out warily, her eyes the only part of her face visible. Barton put his gun away and Ward relaxed more, his thoughts flowing faster.

“Oh my G-d, I’ve got it!” he decided with some excitement. “That woman you mentioned—you’re in love with a _haji_!” Barton’s expression neither confirmed nor denied, but then again it wouldn’t. “She’s brave ‘cause, well, she’s gotta be brave to meet with you. And you can’t tell me what she looks like, because you don’t really know! But seriously, B,” he went on confidently, “she’s _got_ to know how you feel about her, why would you risk coming to see her if you didn’t love her? D—n. Say the words already, man.”

Barton stared at him for a long moment, then said something in Arabic. The woman responded, then disappeared.

“That wasn’t your proposal, was it?” Ward asked worriedly. “Girls need a little more romance than that. You might have to convince her. H—l, she’s probably worried about her family, not whether she _likes_ you or not—“

“Ward,” Barton interrupted. “Don’t tell anyone about this.”

“Oh, no, of course not, man,” Ward assured him. He knew _that_.

“Not Sanborn, not anyone,” Barton reiterated. “Don’t even hint about it. And don’t ask me any questions about it.”

“No, I got it,” Ward promised.

“It’s dangerous for her.”

“I understand.” Ward tried to sound more serious. Local insurgents wouldn’t take kindly to a romance with a US soldier, and they weren’t the sort who discouraged with mere words.

“Okay, let’s go back to the base,” Barton decided, suddenly casual. “Put your hood back up and follow me.”

They stuck to back alleys and side streets, so buried in shadow that Ward couldn’t see his hand in front of his face and had to cling to Barton’s shoulder. Naturally the other man moved unerringly, side-stepping piles of rubbish and sleeping animals that Ward tripped over.

Barton paused behind a low wall, beyond which was open ground swept by floodlights from the base watchtowers. “So… how do you get back into the base?” Ward hissed at him.

“Same way I get out,” Barton responded. “Stay in the shadows and hop the fence.”

He made it sound so easy. “There _are_ no shadows,” Ward countered.

“There _are_ ,” Barton insisted, then admitted, “They’re small.”

“And the fence is twelve feet high,” Ward pointed out.

“Yes.”

“And topped with barbed wire!”

“Yes. It’s actually _two_ fences,” Barton clarified.

“You do this every night?” Ward asked. “D—n, that’s true love.”

“What did I tell you?” Barton said, suddenly cold.

“No questions, I got it,” Ward assured him. “But B, you may be Batman, but _I’m_ definitely not.”

“You don’t think you can enter that way?” Barton interpreted.

“No.”

“It’s better to walk right up to the gate, than to get caught sneaking in,” Barton judged, which Ward agreed with. He thought for a moment. “I have an idea, but there’s an element of risk involved,” he warned.

Surely no riskier than what they’d just been through, Ward decided. “Tell me about it.”

Exactly seven minutes later, Ward took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the wall into the glare of the lights, ID badge clutched firmly in one hand. He didn’t get far before the shouting started.

“USA friendly! USA friendly!” he tried shouting back, but _anyone_ could say that, right?

“Open your jacket! Get down on the ground!”

He obeyed and got a knee in his back for his trouble. “J---s! Watch it, buddy. Check my ID.”

The soldier kneeling on him checked the badge, though it was fairly obvious at that point that he belonged on the base. “What the h—l were you doing out there?!” the soldier demanded, irritated at the paperwork this was going to cause him.

“I was at a whorehouse,” Ward claimed, trying to sound frank without being cheeky.

The soldier paused. “If I let you in, will you tell me _exactly_ where it is?” he asked.

Ward was hardly in a position to say no. “Well, sure.”

The soldier stood and dragged him up. “He’s clean,” he announced, walking back through the gates with Ward in tow. “Okay, so where is it?”

Ward outlined the directions Barton had given him. He didn’t want to know how Barton knew—if they even led to the desired location. “And check their mouths first. You don’t want anyone with bad teeth, that means they have diseases, even if they say they don’t,” he advised.

“They, um, I mean—they take off the scarves, right?” the soldier asked, obviously inexperienced at this. “So you can see their faces?”

“Well yeah,” Ward assured him. “But not until after you’ve paid.”

Finally the man let him go and since he didn’t even ask his name, Ward felt confident the whole incident was going to be swept aside. Good for him, though he suddenly wasn’t sure how confident he felt with base security.

Barton joined him from nowhere, making him jump. “It took you longer to get through than I anticipated,” he frowned.

“Well, you were right, that fellow was _really_ interested,” Ward explained, letting off a tension-relieving laugh. “D—n, I can’t believe we did that!”

“It’s not going to happen again,” Barton warned him fiercely.

“No, I understand,” Ward promised yet again. Didn’t mean he couldn’t be excited about it, though.

****

It never failed, whenever her parents told anyone she was a doctor, they automatically launched into details about their latest medical problems, or their cousin’s husband’s dog-sitter’s, and wanted her diagnosis on them even though she had approximately zero relevant details at hand. And sure, she generally didn’t get grossed out by the graphic details, but that didn’t mean she wanted to hear them while she was eating dinner on vacation. So it was with great relief that she felt her phone buzz in her pocket.

“Sorry, excuse me,” she interrupted, standing quickly. “I have to take this. For work.” Eliza murmured something under her breath with the same rhythm as ‘Jeremy’ and Rachel shot her a glare before ducking out of the dining room.

“Hello?” Rachel said, finally answering the unknown call.

“ _Hello_.”

She relaxed when she heard Jeremy’s voice. “Hi. How are you doing?”

“ _I’m fine_.”

Rachel paused on the deck, looking out at the moon hanging low and huge over the water. “Can you see the moon from there?” she asked impulsively.

“ _Yes_ ,” he answered. “ _At night. Outside. Under proper weather conditions_.” He didn’t seem to find her question odd, so she decided she wouldn’t find his answer odd.

“Are you having many adventures there?” she wanted to know.

“ _The usual_.”

Jeremy seemed content just to know she was on the other end of the line, so she didn’t rush to fill the silence. “Oh, I forgot to tell you what happened to Karl!” she remembered suddenly, leaning on the railing. “Everyone at the Center knows. He got punched out by a chimpanzee.”

She could just picture his reaction of very, very mild shock. “ _What?_ ”

“Karl was working with a chimpanzee,” Rachel went on, “I don’t know why—“

“ _Mission research_ ,” Jeremy speculated.

“I don’t know what the h—l kind of mission involves chimpanzees,” Rachel replied. “But anyway the chimp freaked and hit him. He’s okay though, he’s just got a black eye.”

“ _What happened to the chimp?_ ” Jeremy asked.

“Oh, it’s fine, it got away,” Rachel assured him. “Scampered up a tree or something.”

“ _That’s really funny_ ,” Jeremy decided. He sounded as though he was going to put this knowledge to use later, to Karl’s detriment.

“You’re taking care of yourself?” Rachel asked after a moment. She couldn’t exactly ask what he’d done that day. “Eating your oranges? Not doing anything foolish?”

“ _Yes, yes, and ‘foolish’ is a highly subjective term_ ,” Jeremy replied. The last answer didn’t exactly set her mind at ease, but he wasn’t out there delivering newspapers from his bike, after all. “ _You’re on vacation with your sister?_ ” he checked, changing the subject.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “ _Yes_. And she is annoying the c—p out of me.”

“ _Did she bring her cat?_ ”

She laughed a little, even though he was probably perfectly serious. “No, she left the cat behind,” she assured him. “Hey, you’re not going to get into trouble for calling me, are you?” she wanted to know.

“ _That has ceased to be much of a deterrent for me_ ,” he admitted, and she smiled.

“Anyway, I don’t have to share a room with her at least, my sister, I mean,” Rachel continued. “If I had I’d probably be dumping her body overboard by now. Er, if there was a ship nearby,” she added lamely, trying to keep up her pretense of not telling him where she was vacationing.

He paused. “ _We should not plan your sister’s murder over unsecured phone lines_.”

Rachel laughed, paused when she considered he was probably serious, then laughed again at the absurdity of it.

“ _Oh, you were joking_ ,” Jeremy realized, which just made her laugh more. Though it really shouldn’t have, since Jeremy was in fact perfectly capable of killing people.

“Don’t you have any siblings, tiger?” Rachel asked him. “That’s how we talk about each other all the time.”

“ _I don’t know_.”

She frowned. “You don’t _know_ if you have siblings?”

“ _I don’t remember_.”

The mood of the conversation nosedived but Rachel tried not to let it show in her tone. “Oh. Well, uh, you’ll just have to take my word for it,” she told him lightly.

“ _I will_ ,” Jeremy promised, with great sincerity.

Rachel smiled a little. Then she thought she heard, of all things, her brother’s voice in the background, just for a syllable or two, before the line silenced. “Jeremy?” she prompted. “Jeremy, who was that?”

“ _Noise_ ,” he claimed casually. “ _I’ve moved someplace quieter. Sorry_.”

“Oh. I just thought of my brother for some reason,” Rachel admitted. “My sister and my parents are here, you know, to celebrate my parents’ anniversary, and we keep saying how we wish my brother could’ve joined us. But he couldn’t get leave, so… The Army needs bomb techs over there,” she added, her mixed feelings on the subject obvious.

“ _There are many people in service professions in your family_ ,” Jeremy observed.

“That’s true,” Rachel agreed. She knew he’d read her file containing information about her parents and siblings—not that he _shouldn’t_ have read it, it was just a little odd to have someone know personal things you hadn’t told them. “And then there’s my sister, who designs purses,” she added dryly.

“ _People need purses_ ,” Jeremy replied, and he sounded so earnest Rachel laughed.

“Yes, she’s very creative actually, it makes kind of a nice change in conversation sometimes,” she admitted. “She designed a really beautiful purse as a gift for our mom, it looks just like a real thing you’d buy somewhere.” She paused. “Don’t tell her I said that, though.”

“ _Okay_ ,” Jeremy agreed readily. He sighed a little and Rachel got the impression he was wrapping up. “ _I should go_.”

“Okay. Do a good job. I’ll see you when you get back,” she promised. He hung up, not being big on the actual word ‘goodbye.’ Rachel stayed out on the deck another couple of minutes, staring at the moon and thinking, then finally decided she ought to return inside.

****

At the edge of town there was a minefield. This was somewhat ironic, Sanborn had always though, especially when they were called to that part of town about a suspicious object that might or might not be a bomb. They were just supposed to ignore all the things that were _actually_ bombs, in their carefully delimited bomb zone, left by the Russians in the 1980’s.

For once as he stood near this particular minefield, irony was not the first thing on his mind. “Barton!” he snapped as the man strolled up to him, carrying his duffel bag. “Where the h—l have you been? I sent Ward to look for you twenty minutes ago!”

“I got new orders,” Barton replied, flashing the crumpled print-out at him. “I’ve been transferred. You’re in command until they send someone new.”

“ _What_?!” Sanborn barked, looking futilely at the piece of paper as though it would tell him anything different. “You’re leaving _now_?”

“Yes, my chopper’s waiting.”

“We’re in the middle of a demolition here,” Sanborn pointed out. Barton shrugged; orders were orders. A Master Sergeant wasn’t important enough to hold up a chopper. This left Sanborn scrambling for some semblance of an appropriate good-bye, even though it was probably wasted on Barton. “Well—you did good work, man,” he finally said. “I mean, I don’t think you’re right in the head, but you know what you’re doing and you didn’t get either of us hurt.”

“Thanks,” Barton replied. And that was that. “Do you know where Ward is?”

“Well, he was checking to the northwest, in case you were out jogging again—“

The activity level on the street picked up around them, with radios crackling to life, men shouting, and finally the pop of shots being fired. Sanborn and Barton crouched down by a truck, trying to figure out what was going on. More yelling, more distant, this time in Arabic.

“You understand that?” Sanborn hissed at Barton.

“American spies defiling their sacred places,” Barton translated. Then he frowned and scrambled up into the back of the truck, peering out across the minefield with his scope. “S—t,” he commented flatly, and then Sanborn _really_ got worried.

“ _What_?”

“They’ve got Ward,” Barton reported. “Looks like he’s been beaten.”

Sanborn let out a stream of expletives. “How many of them are there?”

“Six, all armed,” Barton conveyed. “On the other side of the minefield.” He checked his watch, thought a moment, then seemed to make a decision. “This is EOD Master Sergeant Barton,” he said into his radio. “Who’s in charge out here?”

“ _Lieutenant Rohit, Charlie 7_ ,” a voice replied. On the other side of the street, also crouched down by a truck, a man signaled to them.

“The captive is my Specialist, Ward,” Barton identified. “I’m going to get him back. Don’t shoot me.” With that Barton hopped off the truck and started dropping his gear on the ground.

“Barton, what are you _doing_?” Sanborn demanded, for perhaps the hundredth time in the last five weeks.

“Translator!” Barton shouted, stripping off his helmet and vest. His radio was next and he turned a deaf ear to Lieutenant Rohit yelling at him. “Tell them that I’m coming to trade places with the man they have,” he ordered the translator. “Tell them I’m much more valuable.”

Sanborn scrambled up and grabbed Barton’s arm to stop him. “Barton, you don’t—“ If there was anything he’d learned lately, it was that there was no way to reason with the man—not logic, not common sense, not his own survival. “They’re gonna kill him,” he said bluntly. “They’re gonna use him as a shield until they get back to the hills, and then they’re gonna kill him and f-----g post it on YouTube while we’re out searching every cave.”

“I’m going to go get him,” Barton countered, as though Sanborn were unclear on that point.

“You’re just gonna walk through a minefield,” Sanborn questioned.

“It was laid by the Russian Special Forces K Division in 1983,” Barton informed him. “They used a forty-five degree hexagonal pattern. If I can find two mines I can calculate where the others are.”

“What the h—l is wrong with you, man?” Sanborn finally asked, completely mystified. It was nothing to do with caring about Ward—they were co-workers, friends, and Sanborn would do all in his power to save him, but he’d seen this scenario play out before and he knew he _had_ no power.

Barton checked his watch again. “I’m going to go get him, and then I have to go,” he announced.

Sanborn took his hand off his arm. “Fine. Go get him.” There was nothing else he could say.

Barton glanced at the translator to make sure he was still saying his lines, then started to walk slowly towards the minefield, hands raised. The six men, dressed in the traditional garb of the hill dwellers, were relatively easy targets for the soldiers who had rapidly deployed to the nearby rooftops; but two of them held guns directly at Ward’s head where he knelt on the ground, and the others were all sporting weapons as well. The only way Ward came out of it alive was for all six to be taken out simultaneously, and successfully. No doubt plans were afoot to do just that, but it wasn’t exactly an easy thing to coordinate, and the insurgents weren’t just going to stand around waiting for them to figure it out.

Barton knelt at the edge of the minefield, carefully brushing away the dry earth, looking for the telltale rim of a mine. The translator was raggedly yelling back and forth with the insurgents; Lieutenant Rohit had stopped yelling at Barton once he’d crossed the barricade to the minefield. There were plenty of witnesses to say Barton had gone off the deep end, all on his own. He located one mine, then reached out to search for another, glancing up at his target to make sure they hadn’t moved. Ward looked worse the closer he got.

The second mine located, Barton stood back up slowly, staring across the stretch of earth to visualize the rest of the minefield. Assuming the Russians had been precise in their deployment, of course.

Well, only one way to find out.

Barton took a step into the minefield and noticed that most of the yelling had died down. If he crossed successfully, it ought to show the insurgents that he could indeed be valuable to them. Which was convenient insofar as it prevented them from shooting him as he approached, as he could neither duck nor dodge in his current position. He was not actually planning to trade himself for Ward.

He reached the other side of the minefield and crossed the barricade to the group of insurgents. They weren’t the type to let on if they were impressed. More likely they were now wondering, suspiciously, if the entire minefield was just a hoax.

“Ward,” Barton prompted, hands raised harmlessly.

“B, did you just walk across a minefield?” Ward asked, in a slightly slurred tone. “That’s really awesome—“ He was knocked roughly from behind by one of his captors and fell silent.

“I’ve been transferred,” Barton went on nonchalantly. “I’m leaving in just a few minutes.”

“Oh,” Ward replied dully. “Well, good-bye, man. Nice working with—“

Barton killed two of them before the others knew what was happening. He killed two more before they had time to react. The other two were taken out by a couple of crack shots from the rooftops who didn’t wait for orders from their slack-jawed commanders on the ground.

Barton grabbed a knife from one of the late insurgents and sliced through Ward’s bonds. “We don’t have to go _back_ through the minefield, do we?” he asked, dazed.

“No, they’ll come to us,” Barton predicted. “I left the rest of my oranges for you and Sanborn.”

“Very thoughtful,” Ward replied, wincing as he sat back on the ground. “Where are you—“ They both saw the movement at the same time—one of the insurgents, not quite as dead as originally thought, had fallen near the edge of the minefield and was trying to roll over towards it.

Barton yanked Ward to his feet and they scrambled across the ground, trying to put what distance they could between them and anything explosive. The blast propelled them forward, Barton trying to shield Ward from debris as they landed.

“Ward,” he poked a moment later. He turned the other man over and shook him a little.

“What?” Ward protested, opening his eyes and coughing. “D—n, can you not let me rest? I could really use a day off. You okay?” he added, noticing Barton’s uncharacteristic flinch as he climbed to his knees.

“Yes,” the other man claimed, and ripped open Ward’s vest to start performing first aid. “Do you still have your radio?”

“Doubtful,” Ward replied. “Have you ever noticed how amazing the clouds are here? That one kind of looks like a Gorn. You know, from _Star Trek_.”

“I think your injuries are inconvenient, but not life-threatening,” Barton assessed. He could already hear the roar of vehicles approaching, taking the long way around the minefield. “You should get some medical leave out of them.”

“Oh good,” Ward said, eyes drifting shut.

“Ward,” Barton insisted, trying to keep him awake. “You can visit your family. Tell me about your family again.” He gave the other man a shake. “Tell me about your father. What does he do?”

“Army Ranger,” Ward coughed. “Major Ward, retired,” he added, in what was supposed to be a gruff impression.

“What about your mother?”

“Army—Army physical therapist,” Ward recalled groggily. “She chatters a lot, just like me. Said it helped in her job.”

“And your sisters?”

“You actually listened to everything I said?” Ward realized, with some amazement.

“Yes. What do your sisters do?” Barton repeated.

“One, uh, is a doctor, and the other designs purses,” he struggled to convey. Then he added in a singsong tone, “One of these things is not like the other…”

“Tell me about the doctor,” Barton encouraged, pressing down on a bandaged wound in the hopes of slowing the bleeding.

“Oh, she’s really smart,” Ward responded. “Like, really smart. But pretty, too, you know, for a sister. She loves to go dancing. But she’s kinda got a temper, too, she put a dead snake in my bed once just because I cut off her Barbie doll’s hair—“

The support vehicles finally pulled up and the medics surrounded them. Barton brushed off their questions and slipped away from the knot of men.

“Barton! Where’d Barton go?” Sanborn demanded. “Anyone see the guy?” There was no need to specify which guy he was talking about. But no one had seen him, even though it had been only moments since anyone had taken their eyes off him.

When Sanborn got back around to the town side of the minefield, he saw that all Barton’s gear was gone. Several choppers had departed the base that day, he later discovered, and no one could say if Barton had been on one.

Upon inquiry he was told that Master Sergeant Barton of EOD had been killed in Afghanistan four months earlier, which was obviously some kind of paperwork mix-up; he pictured Barton in an office somewhere, staring a clerk down until the mistake was corrected and his paycheck restored. However, for now, it unfortunately made it impossible to figure out where he’d been transferred to.


End file.
